Introduction

I previously posted some warts-and-all email summaries of the ‘Curse of Strahd’ campaign I ran in 2017-18, the ‘Tomb of Annihilation’ campaign I ran in 2018-19, the ‘Out of the Abyss’, a campaign I ran in 2020, the ‘Phandelver’s Pact’ campaign I ran from 2020-21, and the ‘Shadows over Saltmarsh’ campaign from 2021-22. CoS was the first campaign I sent summaries to players by email after each game (I was a bit lazy prior to that), which is why I could use them for this column.

Here are the session summaries from my first Pathfinder 2e campaign which I started running in 2023 after WoTC stunned the TTRPG community by deciding to be dicks about the OGL (remember that?). Like many who started playing PF2e, we commenced with the Beginner’s Box, progressed to Troubles in Otari and then to the Abomination Vaults campaign. The players, calling themselves the “Otari 2600s” (it’s amusing if you’re old enough to remember lol), have now finished the campaign after 85 Sunday night sessions!

I apologize in advance for the writing in these summaries – they’re a bit raw and not fancy at all (I didn’t have time for fancy writing when typing them up late at night after each game lol).

Steve 🙂

Warning: These summaries contain spoilers for Paizo’s Abomination Vaults campaign

Session 73 – Drowsy Days

Gunnar the fighter stepped over the prone goblin and waited for the Children of Belcorra to force open the door. The undead wrenched it open and the fighter charged, slashing left and right with his magic scimitar. Lob the goblin alchemist tossed an alchemist’s fire into the room, igniting the undead svirfneblin. Within seconds Gunnar had dispatched all four of the creatures.

The room’s floor was covered in mud, and a door to the north east accessed a sitting room of some kind. Gunnar spotted a secret door in the corner after removing a tapestry, and Lob found a pile of treasure beyond. Corny the cleric spent some time healing the party after their ordeal. Vydar the ranger helped search for more secret doors, but to no avail.

Ezren the wizard snored loudly from his wheelchair. The party elected to leave him in the room with a message about where to find them. They closed the doors and headed off to their moored raft.

Heading south with the lake’s current, the Otari 2600s reached another dock. Further south they could make out a beach and a vast fungi forest beyond. Vydar noted that because of the constructed paths and variety of mushrooms available it looked like this was a tended farm, possibly a food source for Belcorra’s army.

Tying the raft up at the dock, the party entered a stone building nearby to discover two dead Children of Belcorra and signs of a struggle. Locating another secret door, the party wandered to another exit, but decided to head back rather than explore a new area of the fungi farm.

Heading back to the south, Gunnar stood on the shore and witnessed the destruction of their raft as an enormous tentacle stretched up out of the water and dragged it below.

Corny crossed a stone bridge over a deep chasm which extended across the central cavern. He noted the sounds of distant creatures echoing up from below. A giant steel ladder on the side of the chasm descended into the darkness.

As the party gathered to review their options, they decided to open the doors on a few more stone buildings to the south. The first was a store room with a dead rust monster; the next a lumber room. The third contained an angry lizard creature – Lob promptly shut the door.

Across the bridge, a number of drow warriors had gathered. They asked the party to identify themselves, and Vydar and Lob used their elvish to explain they were from above. A new drow, a scout called Nyzuros, questioned their allegiances, and once he learned they were fighting Belcorra, he explained he would lead them below to his leader in Yldaris.

Lob mentioned they would need to recover Ezren, whom they had left behind. Nyzuros advised he would await their return in a chamber to the south of the cavern. The drow scout showed the Otari 2600s a way north through a lair originally used by caligni who were slaughtered some time ago by a rampaging gug.

The party spent the next two days building a new raft, resting up and recovering the still sleeping Ezren from the room where they had left him. As they wheeled the unconscious wizard back to the fungi farm cavern, a giant Goliath Spider dropped from the ceiling and attacked. Vydar ran south to find the drow, but they were nowhere to be found. Gunnar was webbed up and poisoned by the massive spider. The party retreated to the safety of narrow corridors to the north while the goliath spider expressed its frustration at not being able to get to them.

Vydar eventually found his way through a southern room and corridor and found Nyzuros, who called off the goliath spider (apparently its name was ‘Elmo’, and it was used to guard the cavern). Apologising for the spider and providing Gunnar with anti-venom, the drow scout led the party as they descended a spiralling tunnel Nyzuros referred to as the “devil’s sphincter”…

Level up to 9^th!                      

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